Home
by edka88
Summary: The storm has been raging for hours - and she has been waiting for him ever since then.


Dear readers, thank you so much for your continued support and interest in my stories. I've been silent for months and you still stayed. You're amazing.:)

In two weeks, I'll have my three-year-anniversary, and to that occasion I decided to brush up a little one of my oldest stories. Please, let me know what you think.:)

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She started on the same paragraph for the third time in five minutes, then turned the page when she reached the end of it.

_Still nothing._

Christine turned the page promptly back, her eyes automatically skipping to the first words of the last paragraph, wincing at the familiarity of them now that she saw them for the fourth time in the last six minutes while the empty spot beside her mocked her with every glance she chanced in its direction.

_Where are you?_

The words in the book blurred and shifted before her eyes, turning the lines into one huge, incomprehensible mess for the twentieth time that night. She closed her eyes, listening how the pouring rain tapped against the window with its heavy drops. Occasionally, the most unsettling noises reached her ears, mostly caused by the wind as it whistled through the branches and leaves and swept through the garden, blowing into every little crevice to create the strangest, most disturbing sounds.

When she opened her eyes again, for a quick moment brightness flooded the outside world, casting long shadows of the trees to the bedrooms walls, then the sky crushed with the sound of a thunder that reverberated for several long moments.

Christine jolted, shrinking back against the headboard and pulling the two halves of the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

_Nothing to be scared of._

Should he been there beside her it would be a lot easier not to be scared of a small storm, really.

The book was difficult to balance on her pulled up knees, and at the next thunder – and the next leap of her heart – she finally gave up reading completely. She swung her legs across the bed, looking for the slippers on the carpet, then when she found them, she put them on and started to the slightly ajar door leading to her daughter's room. She peeked in: Céline was sleeping with her face turned to the side a little, her favorite blanket clutched to her chest, one of its corners brushing the floor as it was twisted from its original position.

Suddenly some rushing, almost familiar noise came from somewhere around the garden though it was hard to tell what exactly it was. Christine shivered in the doorway, waiting in horrified stillness whether it would continue or not, and when it didn't, she ventured to cross the small distance to her daughter's bed, straightened the quilt, then left the room with a soft caress to her daughter's forehead.

The sound did continue, though, she noted with muted horror when she was once again standing in the bedroom, but it quickly turned into dizzying relief as she identified the current sound as the usual signal of Erik's arrival. In less then a moment she was already at the top of the stairs.

By the time she got to the parlor he had already closed the door behind him, then kicked down his boots hastily and marched past her without as much as a glance at her. His hair was tousled and clung to his white mask while drops of rain were falling from the end of his curls, trickling down on the sides of his face. There was a distinct limp in his steps as he walked that she didn't notice immediately but made her heart drop to the pit of her stomach when she spotted it.

Something was wrong; something that was bad enough to ignore her for that long of a time.

The room swayed around her momentarily.

_Breathe._

After a moment she hurried after him.

A few steps ahead of her, the mask hit the surface of the bureau with a dull clatter as he tossed it there without slowing. "You have to leave. Now." The words were hard to make out through his heaving and she skipped on a few steps to catch up with him. He passed through the door to the bathroom without pausing, then came to a halt in front of the cabinet, tore open its door and began to rummage through the selves' contents until he came across the little green bottle. "Take her," he said without looking at her once. "I will not follow you." Something gave a shrill clutter as he yanked the shirtsleeve above his elbow – the button, falling into the sink – and he poured a good amount of antiseptic on the oozing gash along his forearm. She swallowed a hiss as it sizzled on his skin – he didn't even wince. "Just go. Take her." He looked up at her for the first time. "Please." He braced himself on the edge of the sink, lowering his head between his hunched shoulders. "Please." It was barely more than a whisper for the second time.

From her position in the doorway she saw how a tremor convulsed his shoulders, then another and another, how the tremors transferred to his back within mere moments until his whole frame was shaking violently; then the arms that supported him gave away and he sunk on his knees in front of the basin.

She swallowed with difficulty, realizing only now that she was shaking as well while she was watching her husband in horrified silence.

Something was wrong, indeed.

All at once she became very much aware of the forceful beats of her heart and the cold grip that seized her stomach; she tried to take a deep breath but it ended up in a desperate try to hold onto the doorframe for support.

_How…?_

A thousand questions chased around in her mind and the dizziness threatened to overwhelm her.

The crouched frame of her husband continued to tremble on the floor.

There was only one of all the possible explanations she could think of that could have elicited such a reaction from him – and she shuddered with the mere thought of it.

After what seemed like an eternity the fog began to clear around her; she reached back to close the door behind her so as not to wake their daughter, then she walked to his side and lowered herself on the floor beside him. He didn't turn but she caught how his eyes strayed towards her direction for the briefest second, and when she laid one hand on his shoulder his arms immediately came around her. She returned his embrace in the same moment.

"Please. Please don't leave," he wheezed between the irregular intakes of breaths, holding onto her without loosening his grip.

"I'm here," she answered, her arms tightening around him when he pulled her even closer.

"I want you here. Both of you. I can't… I wouldn't…" His voice broke before he could finish.

"I'm not going anywhere," she vowed, meaning the promise wholeheartedly, and one of his hands hesitantly reached up to sunk his fingers into her hair. Then he was still again.

It confused her how being in his arms comforted her so while it was him who sought _her_ comfort, but it didn't really matter. At the moment nothing really mattered except his heaving body in her arms. After a short while the fingers in her hair made a slow movement, a shy caress of some sort from him. "I love you, Christine." His words came out in a broken whisper.

"I love you, too," she echoed, grabbing fistfuls of the back of his coat in her hands and he shuddered at her touch.

A strange lassitude fell at the two of them, broken only minutes later by his desolate tone. "Christine, I've killed someone."

"Yes, I thought so," she answered simply.

He tensed in her arms. "You still want to stay?"

She nodded. "Yes."

Some of the tension left him at that and he slumped forward, catching himself on her shoulders while burying his face between her curls. Under her palms, long waves of tremors shook his spine, interjected by sudden intakes of breaths every now and then as the two of them continued to cling to each other. She wanted to talk to him – but he just had confessed murder. The thought that it had happened before, and that she had dealt with it before was not much of a help, certainly not to the extent she hoped it would be. She thought it would be easier to accept it and the fact that it wasn't, was strangely unsettling and comforting at the same time. She didn't want to dismiss it as if it didn't matter because it _did_ matter, however reasonable his motives might have been, but she wanted to take it better, to know what to do and to not feel this utter helplessness.

As it was now, though, it didn't seem he expected of her anything but to allow him to hold onto her and she gladly indulged his unexpressed wish, his subsiding shivers accompanied by her own quivers.

When minutes later they pulled apart at an unspoken accord their eyes met for a fraction of a moment, then she turned and quickly wiped her face as he did the same. After that he reached up with his good arm, unclasped his coat and let it drop to the floor, the black material falling into the puddle that it had created only minutes before. The rest of his clothes were just as soaked as the coat, and she noted with some resigned dismay that her shift was now sharing the same fate, too.

He shifted to sit back on his heels, then winced and changed position so that his legs were crossed in front of him, then moved again, so he could rest his back against the side of the tub. She followed him in an instant, their shoulders barely touching as she settled beside him.

Behind them, drops continued to fall from the leaking tap at the bathtub. He promised to fix it at the weekend.

"Are you all right?" She asked him softly.

"Fine," he muttered.

"Any injuries?"

"Just what you've already seen," he told to the carpet.

"But your leg…?"

"It's nothing."

"Erik."

"Bent in a wrong angle when I fell on it. I'm fine."

His eyes met hers for the briefest moment, his good arm lifting at the same time but he stopped the movement before he reached her and his arm dropped back limply to his lap. He only took her hand when she offered him a moment later, his fingers fluttering restlessly around hers as she pulled their joined hands in her lap, brushing her thumb on the back of his hand. The gesture sent a shudder through his frame – and a shiver down on her spine – but before the thought could settle in, she asked, "What happened?"

"I've been attacked in the alleys." When her hand twitched at the thought he ventured another short glance at her. Brief as it was, that look was a terrifying insight into what exactly remained hidden despite his complete honesty with her. "There's not much to say about it," he added a moment later and she nodded absently as the doorframe blurred before her eyes and the sink seemed to slid closer to her head. For a moment even the light vibrated softly.

"How many?" She asked at long last.

"One." The single syllable reverberated from the tiled walls.

"Any witnesses?"

He shook his head.

"Gendarmes?"

"No."

It was good. Even though there was a man, a _dead man_, lying on the Parisian streets; a man whom he killed with his hands – or with the rope. She had no desire to figure out how exactly it happened and she wasn't sure that Erik would share the details with her, either, even if she asked. To tell her how the threat of imminent death fuelled one's determination, how it felt to hit someone with the sole intention to hurt, or how did it sound when a bone snapped…

She closed her eyes and tried to swallow the bile rising in her throat.

He knew about all of these. He'd done it before.

She married a murderer.

Her fingers tightened around his hand.

Had he not been so _experienced_ he wouldn't have been able to make it home tonight.

Leaving her alone. Leaving _them_ alone.

Anything was acceptable to avoid that.

Beside her he shifted a little, as if uncomfortable, and he leant out both of his legs I front of him, rearranging his injured forearm so as not to jostle it in the process.

"Let me see it," she prodded, reaching up to pull the towel from the rack by the edge.

He showed her his forearm wordlessly.

"It's not that deep," she addressed him and with a swift movement she folded the towel, then started to clear the smears of blood from around the gash. "I think it wouldn't even scar."

"As if it would matter."

"It matters to me," she said, then with her arm closer to the counter beneath the basin she opened its door, took out the roll of gauze and secured a good amount of bandages around his wounded forearm before tucking the end of the gauze under the previous layers. "I'll clear it again after you bathed."

There was no objection on his part of her proposal, so the next minutes were spent in silence again. The air around them still carried the stinging smell of antiseptic, but there was also a small trace of blood in it. _His_ blood. She swallowed to stop the tightening in her throat but it didn't really work.

"Erik, I'm not going to leave you because protected your own life," she murmured, one hand reaching out for his good arm.

His face twitched at her words but he didn't answer her.

"It has happened before. And _I was there with you_ when it happened in Germany."

"I know." His answer was barely more than a whisper.

"Then why?"

His thumb swept a small caress across the back of her hand. Then they were sitting in silence again.

"Because of her." The words were barely loud enough to reach her ears. "So that she would never have to bear the consequences of what I've done."

_Oh._

It took her an eternity to find any words to speak.

"But… It happened before…"

"Before she was born, yes." Briefly his eyes flew up to meet hers. "It's different now."

"It still doesn't change the fact that you were protecting yourself."

"Now."

"You can't change the rest."

"I know." His thumb moved in a shaky caress on her hand, his eyes intent on the little movement. He didn't say anything else – but the nervous vibration around him was unmistakable.

"She wouldn't know about this, or any of the other things that happened until later," she promised. "I'm not going to tell her anything until you want me to. Or rather until you tell her yourself," she added softly.

He was silent for a very long while. "And tomorrow?"

She drew in a slow breath, looking at the carpet as she mused. "Most probably she'll ask you to build a castle for her. You most certainly have to agree to that, even though both of us know that she will tumble it in the moment it will be completed. And she will laugh at that as she always does." With a small smile, she turned back to him. "She'll be just as happy to play with you as she always is. She loves you." One of her hands reached up to cup his face. "And I love you, too."

He nodded feebly at her confession and though his sight wandered to her lips, he made no attempt to kiss her. It was her who leant forward in the end, feeling his warm breath on her lips for the briefest time before she pressed them to his lips as she slid closer to him. Within the lapse of two seconds, his wavering fingers appeared in her hair and – at least for the time of that kiss – all was well again.

"I'll leave you to bathe," she told him softly when they pulled apart. His hand slid slowly from her hair to her shoulder, finally capturing her hand briefly before letting go completely.

"All right," he nodded.

She stood with the aid of the sink that she used as leverage, and he didn't protest when she reached out her hand to help him up. His eyes lingered on their clasped hands longer than before the kiss but that strange, hesitant trembling remained in his touch, even in the way how he let go of her afterwards.

"Give me your shirt," she told him, watching how his hair fell to his eyes with the nod he gave her. "I'll steep it."

"Don't." His court tone cut through the silence and he handed her the crumpled and dirty material with a weighty look. "Burn it. Along with the coat."

After a moment of strained silence she nodded, taking the garments from his hand and he returned to unbuckling his belt.

"I'll be waiting outside," she told him, then opened the door and left.

The logs in the fireplace were still smothering slightly so she took the poker to start the fire again and when it did, she tossed the clothes in her hand into it, staring into the orange flames as they swallowed the creased material.

Somewhere, outside on the Parisian streets, there was a dead man. A man, who was murdered by her husband. A man, who tried to kill him; for money, or worse: because of the mask – she'll never know.

With faltering steps she walked to the front door and locked it, shivering a little at hearing the wind hissing between the porches. Rain was still pouring outside but the storm that was raging at its highest when he arrived – she glanced at the mantel – half an hour ago, was already gone.

It was only a quarter to midnight. It felt like she was up all night.

From the mantel her eyes slid lower to the flames that had by now almost completely consumed the bundle of clothing that was thrown in them. Walking up to the hearth she grabbed the stoker from its holder and poked at the sheaf of half-burnt garments to help the process, then placed it back to the rack. When the pile in the fireplace was reduced to nothing more than smothering ashes she took a few steps aside, then drawing the curtain slightly back she peered out to the garden: rain was still pattering on the leaves softly but it was nothing more than a light drizzle now compared to the earlier drift.

She noted with a watery smile how he got rid of his boots first before escaping to the bathroom. He was determined to send her away with Céline, to save their little girl from being faced with the truth about his past and his recent actions – and still he didn't want to ruin the carpet in the parlor. _Their_ parlor.

The soft tapping of rain was interrupted by the sound of the opening bathroom door that was followed by some hesitant steps, then she felt the familiar heat from his body as he stopped behind her without really touching. Moments crawled away without him reaching for her, so in the end she leaned back into him, then let out a soft sigh of relief when his arms came around her at last.

They stood in silence, unmoving, only her occasional gasps for air disturbing the quiet in the room.

Maybe it could have been solved without killing that man – though she wasn't there and so she had no idea what exactly happened. And it certainly wasn't Erik's fault that he had got attacked and then took the life of that unknown thief in the process of protecting his own.

As unfortunate as it was it happened on the deserted streets of Paris on a regular occasion – and many of those who encountered with an assault like this wouldn't bat a lid at killing in self-defense. But with the past that Erik had… no wonder he was thrown so off-balance. He had done it before for far less excusable purposes than this one – and maybe he thought that by doing so he lost all chances of being forgiven for any kind of misdeeds.

"Is she still asleep?" He asked her at last, voice rasp and powerless.

"Uh-hm," she hummed. "She would have come down if we woke her." Turning around she slid her palms down on his arms to take his hands, then pulled back abruptly when she felt him shiver and heard his sharp intake of breath.

"I'm sorry," she winced. She completely forgot about it. "Let me take care of it," she continued in a low tone.

"All right."

Both of them stood unmoving, though, until a long minute later he drew back and she lead them back to the bathroom. She took up the small bottle of antiseptic then reached for the gauze but as she started to roll it down, the strip ended shortly in her hand.

"It won't be enough," she murmured, half to herself. "I'll do it upstairs."

Holding the small bottle still, she passed beside him then headed for the stairs, stopping at the bottom when he was several steps behind her. For a moment she got the ridiculous impression that he was lingering behind _deliberately_.

When a few moments later he caught up with her he stopped a half step away too much from her for her liking, and when she realized, that she noticed such a thing, suddenly the air seemed to be filled with a strange kind of trembling, too, that was only magnified with every step she made. By the time they reached the bathroom – with him keeping that significant half-distance – she was surprised her hands didn't shake at all when she reached into the counter for the new roll of gauze.

The stinging smell of antiseptic filled the air as she uncapped the small bottle, then doused a clean cloth with it. When she reached out to get rid of the vial he took it from her swiftly, and only a moment later did she realize that she didn't ask him to do it, and a smile pried its way to her lips.

_Even without words._

She set to work, nearing the gash with careful wipes of the cloth. No complain came from him, not even when she felt him shudder under her ministrations as she reached the very edge of the cut – she, however, was very much aware of the cold wave that ran down her spine in return. His occasional shudders, though, didn't stop even when she dropped the dirty cloth into the basin and was busy with unwinding the gauze from the roll. He was shivering constantly.

"Are you all right?" She asked him, setting the strip under his arm. He lowered it a little to help her.

"I will be when I lie down," he answered, holding onto the bandages as she proceeded to cover his whole forearm with the white gauze. When it was done, she tucked the end of it under the whole swathe.

"Done," she announced, reaching out to take the bottle from him, then she saw from the corner of her eyes that he swiftly cleaned up while she packed away the necessities.

They approached the bed together, and immediately she sat down on it while he remained standing on his side.

"Here?" He asked feebly.

"Of course. Where else would you sleep?"

"I wasn't sure that you…" His voice trailed off, as if unsure about whether continuing or stopping was the worse decision.

"Well, I am." She pulled back the edge of the blanket, and finally, he sank down beside her.

It took him a minute to settle in a somewhat comfortable position, and he ended up leaning back against the headboard, his injured leg propped up on a pillow, that earned his highly indignant look at first and a definitely relieved sigh a moment later.

He raked his fingers through his still damp hair and she noticed that the earlier shivering didn't disappear completely. His hand was trembling.

"You took off your boots," she ventured, moving a little closer to him on the bed.

"It was raining."

"You've been hurt. And beyond distraught."

He shrugged but said nothing.

The ring glittered on his finger, and she brushed her fingers against it before taking his hand again. "I love you."

He nodded at that a couple of times, his sight still riveted to the blanket.

"I love you, too," he whispered back after a moment, chancing a glance at her.

"I don't care what you've done, Erik. I'll always want you to come home."

"I know it distresses you. I didn't want that."

"Think about how distressed I would be, figuring out that you lost a fight because you were concerned about my feelings on the possible outcome of it." She let out an uneven sigh as her head came to rest on his shoulder. "I cannot tell you anything else except what I've already told you before: try to forget about it."

In the next moment, she was crushed in a firm embrace, both of his arms holding onto her securely while her hands found their place on his back.

"Doesn't your arm hurt from this?" She asked a moment later when his hold increased further.

"Like hell," he muttered and she smiled into his neck.

"I'm not going anywhere so you may as well loosen it, you know."

Several heartbeats later he drew back indeed, but his hold on her remained there through the entire night.


End file.
